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<FONT SIZE="+2" COLOR="#00AEFF"><STRONG><EM>A Song of Joys</EM></STRONG></FONT><BR>
<FONT SIZE="+1"><STRONG>Walt Whitman</STRONG></FONT>
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O to make the most jubilant song!<BR>
Full of music--full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!<BR>
Full of common employments--full of grain and trees.
<P>
O for the voices of animals--O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!<BR>
O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!<BR>
O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!
<P>
O the joy of my spirit--it is uncagged--it darts like lightning!<BR>
It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,<BR>
I will have thousands of globes and all time.
<P>
O the engineer's joys! to go with a locomotive!<BR>
To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the laughing locomotive!<BR>
To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.
<P>
O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides!<BR>
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh stillness of the woods,<BR>
The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the forenoon.
<P>
O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys!<BR>
The saddle, the gallop, the pressure up the seat, the cool gurgling by the ears and hair.
<P>
O the fireman's joys!<BR>
I hear the alarm at dead of night,<BR>
I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run!<BR>
The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.
<P>
O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious
of power, thristing to meet his opponent.
<P>
O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is capable of generating
and emitting in steady limitless floods.
<P>
O the mother's joys!<BR>
The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the patiently yielded life.
<P>
O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation,<BR>
The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony.
<P>
O to go back to the place where I was born,<BR>
To hear the birds sing once more,<BR>
To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more,<BR>
And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.
<P>
O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,<BR>
To continue and be employ'd there all my life,<BR>
The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water,<BR>
The work of fisherman, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher;<BR>
I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear,<BR>
Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,<BR>
I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man;<BR>
In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-speer and travel out on foot on the ice--I have a small axe
to cut holes in the ice,<BR>
Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my brood of tough boys 
accompanying me,<BR>
By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.
<P>
Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots where they are sunk with
heacy stones, (I know the bouys,)<BR>
O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I row just before sunrise toward the
bouys,<BR>
I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are desperate with their clays as I
take them out, I insert wooden pegs in the joints of the pincers,<BR>
I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the shore,<BR>
There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil'd till their color becomes
scarlet.
<P>
Another time markerel-taking,<BR>
Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the water for miles;<BR>
Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the brown-faced crew;<BR>
Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body,<BR>
My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the coils of slender rope,<BR>
In sight around me the quick veering  and darting of fifty skiffs, my companions.
<P>
O boating on the rivers,<BR>
The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers,<BR>
The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft and the raftsmen with 
long-reaching sweep-oars,<BR>
The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook supper at evening.
<P>
(O something pernicious and dread!<BR>
Something far away from a puny and pious life!<BR>
Something unproved! something in a trance!<BR>
Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.)
<P>
O to work in mines, or forging iron,<BR>
Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample and shadow'd space,<BR>
The furnace, the hot liquid pour'd out and running.
<P>
O to resume the joys of the soldier!<BR>
To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer--to feel his sympathy!<BR>
To behold his calmness--to be warm'd in the rays of his smile!<BR>
To go to battle--to hear the bugles play and the drums beat!<BR>
To hear the crash of artillery--to see the glittering of the bayonets and musket-barrels in the 
sun!<BR>
To see men fall and die and not complain!<BR>
To taste the savage taste of blood--to be so devilish!<BR>
To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.
<P>
O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!<BR>
I feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me,<BR>
I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, <EM>There--she blows!</EM><BR>
Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest--we descend, wild with excitement,<BR>
I leap in the lower'd boat, we row toward out prey where he lies,<BR>
We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, basking,<BR>
I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his vigorous arm;<BR>
O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling, running to windward, tows me,<BR>
Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again.<BR>
I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the wound,<BR>
Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast,<BR>
As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and narrower, swiftly cutting the
water--I see him die,<BR>
He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls flat and still in the 
bloddy foam.
<P>
O the old mangood of me, my noblest joy of all!<BR>
My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard,<BR>
My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.
<P>
O ripen'd joy of womanhood! O happiness at last!<BR>
I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother,<BR>
How clear is my mind--how all people draw nigh to me!<BR>
What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more than the bloom of youth?<BR>
What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me?
<P>
O the orator's joys!<BR>
To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the ribs and throat,<BR>
To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,<BR>
To lead America--to quell American with a great tongue.
<P>
O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving identity through materials and loving
them, observing characters and absorbing them,<BR>
My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch, reason, articulation, 
comparison, memory, and the like,<BR>
The real life of my senses and flesh trancending my senses and flesh,<BR>
My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes,<BR>
Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally see,<BR>
Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates.
<P>
O the farmer's joys!<BR>
Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's, Kansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese'
joys!<BR>
To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work,<BR>
To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,<BR>
To plough land in the spring for maize,<BR>
To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall.
<P>
O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along the shore,<BR>
To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore.
<P>
O to realize space!<BR>
The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds,<BR>
To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying clouds, as one with them.
<P>
O the joy of a manly self-hood!<BR>
To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,<BR>
To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,<BR>
To look with calm gaze  or with a flashing eye,<BR>
To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,<BR>
To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.
<P>
Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth?<BR>
Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing face?<BR>
Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath'd games?<BR>
Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers?<BR>
Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse and drinking?
<P>
Yet O my soul supreme!<BR>
Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought?<BR>
Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart?<BR>
Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow'd yet proud, the suffering and the struggle?<BR>
The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day or night?<BR>
Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres Time and Space?<BR>
Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, the sweet, eternal, perfect
comrade?<BR>
Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee O soul.
<P>
O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,<BR>
To meet life as a powerful conqueror,<BR>
No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,<BR>
To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving my interior soul impregnable,<BR>
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.
<P>
For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating--the joy of death!<BR>
The beautiful touth of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons,<BR>
Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd to powder, or buried,<BR>
My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,<BR>
My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices, eternal uses of
the earth.
<P>
O to attract by more than attraction!<BR>
How it is I know not--yet behold! the something which obeys none of the rest,<BR>
It is offensive, never defensive--yet how magnetic it draws.
<P>
O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!<BR>
To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!<BR>
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium face to face!
<P>
To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!<BR>
To be indeed a God!
<P>
O to sail to sea in a ship!<BR>
To leave this steady unendurable land,<BR>
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses,<BR>
To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,<BR>
To sail and sail and sail!
<P>
O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!<BR>
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!<BR>
To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,<BR>
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)<BR>
A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.
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